Playing House
by kwritten
Summary: She would never truly pinpoint the moment that she fell in love with Jeremy Gilbert, but afterwards she would always say it was as easy as melting chocolate. / AU post S3-finale. Jeremy and Caroline are left alone in the Gilbert house when the others go off to war. Schmoop, obviously. Brief mentions of character deaths.


**title**: playing house  
**fandom**: tvd  
**pairing**: Jeremy/Caroline  
**rating**: pg13  
**word count**: ~3300  
**for**: my Parisian princess  
**summary**: future au / domestic!fluff – Jeremy and Caroline are left behind in Mystic Falls for their own safety, as they wait to pick up the pieces of a war they aren't allowed to rage, they fall into each other  
**a/n**: intended to be pure schmoop - but it turned out a little darker than I thought it would. Children have wounds.  
also - written before the events of 4x14 - no spoilers for S4 ... goes AU sometime after S3, but set at least 6months to a year after Elena's death.

In the beginning it is so easy.  
Like melting chocolate on her tongue, feeling the sweet hardness become sticky and soft, filling her mouth, filling her senses.

She would never truly pinpoint the moment that she fell in love with Jeremy Gilbert, but afterwards she would always say it was as easy as melting chocolate.

That first morning, walking down the stairs of the Gilbert home in just an old pair of shorts and one of Tyler's old tops (a threadbare, white one, so old it was nearly sheer, the style people called "wife beaters" but she hated that, and she called "tank tops" but he hated that) and when she saw Jeremy in the kitchen, she almost scolded herself for not wearing a bra - but it was Jeremy, he handed her a cup of hot chocolate (waiting for her, warm) with one hand and pulled a bag of blood out of the fridge with the other, and then went back to the morning paper as if she had always been there - in his kitchen - braless and pantsless, her face streaked with tears.

It wasn't as if she expected things to be out of the ordinary; for his big brown eyes to grow softer when she walked in the room, as he peered down at her and asked her softly if she was alright, cradling her as she sobbed and told her that there was no reason to worry.

It wasn't as if she expected things to be like they were when this all started; for him to be locked in his room, music blaring, the smell of pot wafting out from underneath the door, slamming doors heard at all hours of the day, and a sullen boy warily watching her from underneath a furrowed brow.

Anyway, it had never really been like that.

It would have been so much more nerve-wracking if it had started another way; if they both were angry and hurt and took it out on each other - blaming the other for being left behind, waiting in the wings of a war they were more than capable of fighting themselves, left to pick up the pieces when the heroes came back broken.

_Elena had said, before she left, leaning out the window of the car - Damon sitting so patiently (when had Damon ever been patient?) as she tearfully took Caroline's hand and said: "I need a home to fight for. And you are my home, Care." And so she had to stay._

It would have been so cathartic if it had started a different way; if they both were angry and hurt and took it out on each other - yelling at the other for being forced to stay behind, shouting out insults about helplessness and inferiority, things they both didn't mean but felt so much more and so much less the more time they spent with themselves.

_Bonnie had said, before she left, clinging to Jeremy, reaching up to clasp his neck with her hand, "This isn't your war, Jer. It's mine. I have to fight it alone." And so he had stayed._

But life in the Gilbert home with Jeremy, shunted aside in the midst of a war, was hot chocolate in the morning and sitcoms in the evening and gardening in the afternoons and long days at work and laundry on the weekends. Life in the Gilbert home with Jeremy was a bit like playing house; only they weren't playing anymore and they hadn't been children in a very long time and no one had to explain the rules.

After a week of tossing and turning in Aunt Jenna's bed (for she refused to stay in Elena's room - it was too morbid), she found herself curled up with Jeremy and she stayed. At first, it was just for warmth (or so she told herself) … and it wasn't as if Jeremy minded. They were alone - it was only the two of them - and they were both riddled with the scars of loss and time.

He didn't flinch or tease or question her when she appeared in his doorway in a nightgown and clutching her old teddy bear. He was lounging in bed, sketching, and she said, "You look like the hero in a bad indie film."

"If you want, I can lose the shirt and dig out my old Shins album."

She blinked once. "Only if you promise to be drawing pictures of your dead girlfriend."

For a moment there hung in the air the unasked question: _Which one?_

_Vicki.  
Anna._

April.

Matt.  
Tyler.

. . . .

"Deal."

And then she was curled up on the bed beside him and he handed her a novel from his bedside table and eventually she fell asleep, waking up to his limbs wrapped all around her like a cocoon.

_Later she would ask why he did that, the first night."Because you were crying in your sleep."_

The next night when she wandered in, the Shins were coming through his speakers and he indeed appeared to have completely lost his shirt.

She laughed harder than she had laughed in a very long time.

And his eyes danced under those impossibly long eyelashes.

The first time she kissed him, he was far less surprised than she was.

She was standing in the kitchen reading a letter from Elena and trying very, very hard not to cry. On the stove, something was boiling over, and something in the oven was burning. But the blood behind her eyes was threatening to roll down her cheeks and she didn't notice anything else. Right when the fire alarm started to sound, Jeremy walked through the door. He took one look at her and another at the smoke emanating from the stove behind her and said with a smile, "I got you your favorite."

And he was handing her a pint of ice cream. It was her favorite. And she was kissing him softly on the mouth.

Just like that.

And then he found the fire extinguisher and turned off the alarm and ordered pizza and popped his favorite Audrey Hepburn movie (Charade) while she sat silently on the floor and ate her ice cream like a small child. And then they sat on the couch eating pizza and laughing, just like they did every night - as if it was the way they had always behaved on every night.

He curled himself around her that night, just like he did every night, she half expected him to kiss her then, or to say something, or for his heart to be beating faster because she was laying in his arms; but he didn't and it wasn't. He wrapped his bulk around her petite frame and it was just like always.

Smooth and honest and natural. As if his arms had grown just large enough to fold her up in them.

The first time he kissed her, that wasn't what surprised her.

They were watching old episodes of _Grey's Anatomy_, she turned to him - sitting in the corner of the couch, her legs sprawled over his, her feet kicking his book occasionally when she was excited or he didn't respond quickly enough - and asked, "But I'm not dark and twisty?"

He shrugged and pinched her calf, not looking up from his novel, "Are you supposed to be?"

"They all were."

She didn't mean to sound petulant. But really, did she have to spell out everything for him?

He put his book on the floor and looked at her pointedly. "They?"

"Vicki."

It came spilling out of her before she could stop it.

"Anna."

She would probably have to claim insanity after this.

"Bon—"

But he had reached forward and jerked her forward so that she was sprawled awkwardly across his lap, his lips pressed against hers, his hand tangled up in her hair.

And she was so surprised that she wasn't even able to enjoy it really, but it was just a soft press of his lips against hers, silencing and comforting her. Anyway, it was short and then he was tucking her head under his chin and kissing the top of her head, angling his body so that they were lying side by side on the couch.

He was still for a long time, his breath steady and even beneath her, the only movement between them his hand stroking and pulling and twirling her hair, his thumb drawing circles on her hip bone.

She was about to pull away, to teasingly suggest a late-night snack, to break the heavy silence that sat around her shoulders so uncomfortably… silence was never uncomfortable with Jeremy in the room.

"Vicki wasn't dark and twisty."

He said it wryly. Almost like he thought she was going to disagree with him. But she didn't. She just waited.

"She was so full of light. Too full. It was there for anyone to see. No one was willing to look."

Maybe his voice cracked a little. Maybe his grip on her waist tightened a little. Maybe she snuggled closer to him.

Maybe.

"Or maybe they were blinded by it or something. She was just too much, she didn't fit. And she knew it."

A pause.

A moment to reflect.

She had never heard him talk like this. She knew he was smart - brilliant Elena always said - but Caroline wasn't used to this. She wasn't even sure what exactly it was, what he was telling her. Metaphors and grand gestures. It was the sort of dialogue she expected from Damon or Klaus. Words that needed reflection and thought to make them fully realized. The world had always been too close, too pressing, too visceral, to allow her much time for words like these. And then the world had suddenly grown so much more vibrant, even more pressing, there was only so much her senses had time to deal with and comprehend. It was so much easier to plan another Founder's Ball or bake sale or school dance. She could be good at those things.

She was so good at being what she was told to be.

"Anna."

Caroline tilted her head up to look at him.

His voice carried the usual softness and reverence that it always adopted if Anna's name was mentioned.

"She was ancient, you know? But also really young. She never got to live a full life. She was always so alone, so pushed aside. And she was … so …"

He looked down at her and she tried to smile comfortingly up at him.

She waited patiently as he thought.

"They didn't belong. They were both too much or not enough of something always. They stood out, they reached out, there wasn't anything for them to hold on to. Like a light that is so bright you can't look directly at it, so no one ever saw them."

"Except you."

"I'm not standing in the center."

Like me.

She didn't mean to say it aloud. Later she realized that she probably did.

But she was never really sure.

_It wasn't like she hadn't clawed her way into the center. It wasn't like she wasn't afraid every day that someone would realize that she didn't belong and kick her out, put her back on the outside where she belonged.  
It didn't come easily to her – the way it always had for Elena. Elena, who wore the world's expectations like armor and laughed at them, even as they protected her. She didn't have to work at being the One, at being so effortlessly right for things. It didn't come without a fight for her – the way it wasn't a fight for Bonnie. Bonnie, was strong enough to let the battle pass her by. To stand outside it and shrug with her crooked smile and forge her own path._

But Caroline wasn't strong, she wasn't effortless. She was terribly, terribly afraid.

Of being forgotten, neglected; of losing the game she had been taught from childhood she had to win in order to be happy. It had never made her happy, but it gave her an outlet for her perfectionism, for her attention to detail, for her willingness to please, for her obscene desire to throw herself fully into a project, (a person), a town, an event. It was the only outlet she had for the energy that as a human kept her up nights alphabetizing bookshelves, that as a vampire had her running and running and running all through the night. She beat herself into perfection for so long it was an old habit that wouldn't die. Anyway….  
What other recourse did she have?

He lifted her chin with one finger and looked at her hard. It took everything in her not to squirm away, not to break her gaze with his. She considered very seriously sitting up, straddling him, taking his hands in her hands, and kissing him so that he'd close those ridiculous eyes and stop looking at her like that. It wasn't a bad idea.

His was better.

His gaze never wavering from hers, he slipped a small knife out of his pocket and slit a small cut on the inside of his hand, raising it up to her lips, his other arm keeping her pinned to him. As the blood surged through her and her eyes darkened, she saw him watching, she felt him grow hard beneath her. He worshipped her fully, his eyes never leaving hers, his desire always present, hers always first.

For a split second she wondered if he was trying to find Anna in her – if she was merely a substitute for something he couldn't have.

For a moment, she wondered if he was a stand-in for all she had lost, for all the people she had loved who had been stripped away.

It was the smallest moment. She never thought of it again.

If Jeremy Gilbert was capable of anything – it was of committing fully to whatever he loved and loving it with eyes open wide with wonder.

As she leaned forward to lick his wound carefully she caught him whisper under his breath, a plea she didn't quite understand with his blood flowing down her throat and his warmth enveloping her, "Who would ask someone so bright to turn off their light?"

After that first time, things continued on much the same as before.

Only they explored (almost) every room with their new hobby. Sometimes twice.

It was a steady rhythm. Waking around noon, sending Jeremy to work in the afternoons, hunting in the evenings, sex at dawn, sleep, water, rinse, repeat.

She kept up her Founder's Family responsibilities for the sake of the Forbes, Lockwood, and Gilbert families. She ran the town as she always had, each new Mayor relying on her planning abilities, her people skills, her devotion to perfection. She was still Caroline – only seemingly more so with each passing day.

And it was starting to wear on her.

But she didn't realize it right away. (Although maybe he had always known.)

Not until the third year without a letter. Not until nearly five years since they had all left without looking behind. Not until nearly four years after her mother brought her the newspaper clipping detailing Bonnie's death in Florida. She was standing on the front porch, with the list for Miss Mystic Falls in her hand and she was paralyzed. He found her shell-shocked and silent, bloody streaks trickling from her eyes to her chin, her silk top forever damaged. He never found out how long she had been standing there.

There were no words. No real need for any. He knew them all.

_They are all gone._

And she couldn't stay much longer.

He was getting older and she was staying younger. This would be her eighth Miss Mystic Falls – eventually someone was going to notice that she wasn't aging. The way time now passed, it would be sooner rather than later. And she couldn't drag him along with her, he'd only grow older and older. She wasn't prepared to watch him wither away. She couldn't bear him watch her never change. He was always so much younger, she was always so much younger. They were never in the same place.

"I missed the interviews," she gasped, wiping her face with the Kleenex he handed her softly. She was sitting in his lap, wrapped around him, their shirts were both ruined with her tears.

"Does it matter?"

"Jeremy Gilbert!" she slapped his chest. "Of course it matters!"

"Why?"

Caroline rolled her eyes and attempted to stand up, but he held her tightly in his lap, nuzzling her neck. "Gilbert stop acting like an old emo-teen. Emo isn't in anymore. And you're getting too old."

"Hey. This old man doesn't need a passel of prejudiced old crustaceans telling me what I should or should not care about. And neither do you."

"Did you just say passel of crustaceans?"

"Care, I'm serious."

"So am I! How old do you think you are, old man?"

"Old enough to know it doesn't matter if you are at the Miss Mystic Falls interviews today, tomorrow, next year, or ever. It's time to let go, Care."

Caroline stiffened. "Let go of what?" Her voice was a little hoarse, raw – from crying, she thought.

Jeremy shifted her in his lap so that she was facing him, she angled out her legs so she could straddle him and look him right in the eyes, "Let go of whatever is keeping you from being… you."

She tried to pull away, but his arms were there, his eyes were there, he was always right there – beneath her, around her, behind her, always waiting for her to fall, waiting for her to pull away, to push away. Always there to stop her from overreacting, from running away, from sinking too far into herself. "I am me."

He stood up and set her gently on the ground. "Are you?"

"Are you?!" she shouted at his retreating back.

It was times like these that she felt their age gap so strongly. When she felt so ancient, when he looked so much older. When his back was to her, when he exited a room, when she felt lost for that split second before she remembered that being alone wasn't the same as being lost. When she felt so young, so stuck, so static; as he grew and grew and changed before her eyes.

He turned and shrugged, "Who else would I be?"

That night she slipped between the sheets naked and wanting. That night he was attentive, he gave and she took. That night was no different than any other. Except that she needed it all the more.

"What did you mean?"

"When?"

"That time on the couch. The first time. When you said something about a light being turned off."

"Oh. That."

"Yeah. That. … there… yes…"

"When you put a diamond under a spotlight, what happens?"

"It sparkles."

"It reflects."

"Whatever."

"Pay attention little girl."

"With pleasure old man."

"When you put a candle under a spotlight, what happens?"

"It… well you can't see it."

"It gets drowned out."

"Sure."

"What do you think you are, Caroline? A diamond or a candle?"

". . . "

"I've seen you, you shine bright all on your own."

"Like a candle?"

"Just like a candle."

"Do I have to be a candle? They're so small."

"You're small."

"Not there! Ah…"

"You're a star, Caroline."

"A star?"

"And you've been treated like a diamond your whole life. Aren't you ready to shine on your own?"

"Wait stop."

"But I though you liked-?"

"You think I shine? Like … like they did?"

"More."

When they left the Gilbert home behind, they took very little with them. Caroline was escaping to live in a city with her (much older) boyfriend while she went to college. It wouldn't fit the façade to take too many things with them.

Anyway, it had only been seven years. The others might still come back someday.

On the kitchen counter they left a note, just in case.

_Hey sis, I fell in love with a find us when you , Jeremy (and Caroline XOXO)_


End file.
